1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to disk drives, and in particular to a disk drive housing member including an electrically insulative coating and metallic platings, and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The typical hard disk drive includes a head disk assembly (HDA) and a printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) attached to a disk drive base of the HDA. The head disk assembly includes at least one magnetic disk, a spindle motor for rotating the disk, and a head stack assembly (HSA). The spindle motor includes a spindle motor hub that is rotatably attached to the disk drive base. The hub has an outer hub flange that supports a lowermost one of the disks. Additional disks may be stacked and separated with annular disk spacers that are disposed about the hub. The head stack assembly has an actuator assembly having at least one transducer head, typically several, for reading and writing data from and to the disk. The printed circuit board assembly includes a servo control system in the form of a disk controller for generating servo control signals. The head stack assembly is controllably positioned in response to the generated servo control signals from the disk controller. In so doing, the attached heads are moved relative to tracks disposed upon the disk.
The head stack assembly includes an actuator assembly, at least one head gimbal assembly, and a flex circuit cable assembly. A conventional “rotary” or “swing-type” actuator assembly typically includes an actuator having an actuator body. The actuator body is configured to rotate on a pivot assembly between limited positions about an axis of rotation. A coil support extends from one side of the actuator body. A coil is supported by the coil support and is configured to interact with one or more permanent magnets to form a voice coil motor. One or more actuator arms extend from an opposite side of the actuator body. A head gimbal assembly includes a transducer head, typically a magneto-resistive (“MR”) head, which is distally attached to each of the actuator arms. To facilitate rotational movement of the actuator, the actuator assembly further includes the actuator body that has a bore and a pivot bearing cartridge engaged within the bore.
The disk drive includes a disk drive housing with housing members, such as the disk drive base and a cover, for encompassing the other disk drive components. A plurality of fasteners, such as metal screws, are disposed about a periphery of the cover through fastener openings and engage fastener holes at the periphery of the disk drive base for attachment of the cover with the disk drive base. Typically, a fastener is engaged to the pivot bearing cartridge through the cover, and other fasteners are engaged to the spindle motor and other components to the disk drive base.
As cost considerations are always of importance, it is desirable to manufacture the housing members, such as the disk drive base and the cover, of a relatively lower cost material that satisfies the structural specifications of such housing members. For example, various metals such as cold rolled steel or aluminum are generally much less expensive than other contemporary materials utilized for such application, such as stainless steel. Such lower cost metallic materials, however, may suffer from various problems associated with corrosion and particulate contamination for example. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an improved disk drive housing configuration in comparison to the prior art.